A chapter of the moral history of London: an interview with Bridget O’Connor.

Abstract

Bridget O ’Connor is a young English fiction writer who has successfully published two collections of short stories, Here Comes John (1993) and Tell Her You Love Her (1997). Her stories introduce a great variety of voices: women or men of all ages and from many different social, cultural and professional background. However, many of them are first-person narratives involving a very peculiar character, young or middle-age, who generally lives in a city, London, and leads a lonely, boring and frustrating life. They make up a group of losers and drop-outs, characters who are socially, professionally or sexually doomed. This does not mean that Bridget O ’Connor always adopts a depressing tone for her sad stories. On the contrary, every now and then, especially in the second volume, there is a touch of vibrant mordant humour associated with a satiric intention. The grotesque exaggerations, the suggestive idiom and the effective ironies designed to ridicule the characters ’ obsessions and follies often produce some comic passages. These amusing elements are cleverly juxtaposed to other more gloomy and sometimes tender images. The immediacy and economy in her narrative brings to light one of the main virtues of her style. Everywhere the description and evocation have a precision, economy and sensitiveness which constitutes the reality of the books ’ style. Nothing is wasted. Every word and every detail are significant and necessary to create and evoke the appropriate mood. The descriptions are accurate, full of images which appeal to all our senses. There are credible dialogues in which the characters use a type of language which is appropriate to the situation, age or social status. Very often, style and purpose are closely knit in her stories. And all this clearly demonstrates her mastery of the genre. Bridget O ’Connor was interviewed in Alcalá de Henares (Madrid) on 19 February 1999, during a course on contemporary British writing, organised by the Department of Modern Philology of the University of Alcalá and the British Council (Madrid).